Quote from: TristramEvans;726729Meh, they can goof up the Forgotten Realms all they want. Just so long as it doesnt infect the main rulebooks.

Hopefully.

Back when I first stopped playing tabletop rpg games altogether, there were only a few 1E Forgotten Realms supplements released.  (ie. Waterdeep, etc ...).  Years later when I first got back into tabletop rpg games (shortly after 3.5E was released), Forgotten Realms in the meantime became a huge monstrosity (compared to the original grey box) over the years I was on hiatus away from rpg games.  It was a bit of a shock at first, coming across hardcore FR "canon lawyers" in the initial 3E/3.5E games I played in.

Quote from: TristramEvans;726729Cant help but think there are going to be some railroady modules ahead, though.

Wonder if WotC will attempt to imitate Paizo's Pathfinder AP series of monthly releases.

Quote from: Haffrung;726955It sucks that the FR tail is wagging the D&D dog, but WotC are a business, just as all commercial RPG publishers are. Gygax was the same way, neglecting the game during its heyday to chase deals in L.A. But if he wasn't interested in making piles of money, D&D would have stayed a mimeographed wargame alternative sold out of his car at conventions. Most of people on this board owe their introduction to RPGs to an ambitious man trying to use D&D to make a lot of money.

This is a completely slanted assessment. For one thing the game spread like a wild fire when it was treated as a game, not an IP, and by the time Gygax was in LA there already were signs that the popularity of the game was reaching a plateau, for a second thing Gary's departure to LA in charge of D&D Entertainment was a result of him losing the battle with the Blumes to keep control of the company, which is not something he himself desired, and for a third the relentless chasing of money and the over-spending at TSR is what created the power struggle that would ultimately get Gary to lose both the game and company he created. So with hindsight, I don't think you'll get a consensus this was such a good thing for Gary and TSR, in the end.

Quote from: Haffrung;726955And don't the Forgotten Realms novels bring in more money for Hasbro than the D&D system?

Has this been documented, or has it only been suspected for a very long time?

I can probably believe this has possibly been the case since mid-2012, when no more new 4E splatbooks were being released, or maybe during early-mid 2008 when no more 3.5E books were being released and the 4E core books were not released yet.

Quote from: Benoist;726960Gary's departure to LA in charge of D&D Entertainment was a result of him losing the battle with Blumes to keep control of the company, which is not something he himself desired, and for a third the relentless chasing of money and the over-spending at TSR is what created the power struggle that would ultimately get Gary to lose both the game and company he created, so in hindsight, this is not exactly something you'd have a consensus about as a "good thing", at the end of the day.

While the Blumes did remove EGG from day-to-day gaming operations, being in Hollywood and attempting to get the properties developed is something that he wanted to do, and I've never seen or heard him say anything against this directly or regret that type of development.  

I'm almost positive that if Gary got to keep D&D, instead of bitching about what the "current ownership" has done/is doing, the same exact people would be bitching about what Gary Gygax did to D&D by "selling out".  

It's easier to believe in the myth of the "exiled king", struggling as a "starving artist" and setup to be a messianic "Gamer Jesus" figure, when the reality is much different--the only reason he ended up going back to pen and paper games and dabbled in the 2000s was because he failed to make the transition to computer games like he wanted to.  

People want to praise Gary as a creative force, but they ignore, downplay, or even deride the entrepreneurial side of him that was in part of what made this whole thing a viable hobby in the first place.

I guess we'll just have to disagree about that bizarre "exiled king" rant of yours, though you'll have to note I didn't mean he didn't want to develop the properties while in charge of D&D Entertainment, I meant he didn't want to hand over the control of the company to the Blumes in the first place.

Quote from: Haffrung;726955It sucks that the FR tail is wagging the D&D dog

In a more general sense, wonder if this is common in other niches.

For example.

- Does Marvel and DC make more revenue from movies than from comic books?

- Does Hasbro make more revenue from Transformers and GI Joe movies, than from the toys?

- Did the Harry Potter movies make more revenue than the actual books?

- Did the James Bond movies make more revenue than the novels (both Fleming and subsequent authors)?

- How much revenue does Star Wars merchandising (toys, etc ...) make, compared to the actual films?

Quote from: ggroy;726973In a more general sense, wonder if this is common in other niches.

The middle three are hard to measure because the majority of the revenue is not shared by the same unit.  Hollywood movies have their own accounting and income sources, so it's hard to tell if whatever percentage Hasbro gets from three recent Transformers movies equals the amount they got from directly selling toys.  I'm sure J.K. Rowling gets more of a percentage of book revenue than movie revenue.

Star Wars was always owned by Lucasfilm, a great deal for a creator unlike much of Hollywood.  Still, that's hard to tell because there were the up decades of the two trilogies and the downtime of mostly licensed revenue.

Comics are owned by the big media companies, and in this case I do think the movies and TV properties have vastly surpassed the original mediums.  I'm honestly surprised that both DC and Marvel are still publishing, as the comic book itself has become a pale shadow of its original market and few new people are coming in--while kids learn of Spiderman and Batman likely from cartoons first.   I fully suspect in a decade or so one of the big two will shut down regular publishing, perhaps only publishing backlist collections.

Also, if we were to apply this to computer games, WoTC definitely needs to make sure the changes to D&D are coordinated with new and existing computer games.  In the post Bioware-games era the D&D Brand has become pretty weak in this field, and it needs to become strong again.

Quote from: JRT;727016Also, if we were to apply this to computer games, WoTC definitely needs to make sure the changes to D&D are coordinated with new and existing computer games.  In the post Bioware-games era the D&D Brand has become pretty weak in this field, and it needs to become strong again.

And they better not make it an action RPG for God's sake.  What I mean by that isn't so much Skyrim, but more like Diablo.  That totally hamstrings the things that make D&D great.  It should be party based, and not feel like you have to mash buttons as fast as you can to get anywhere.

Quote from: ggroy;726973In a more general sense, wonder if this is common in other niches.

For example.

- Does Marvel and DC make more revenue from movies than from comic books?

Yes, but in this case Marvel means Disney and DC means Time Warner. The people making the comics arent seeing any of that money.

Quote- Does Hasbro make more revenue from Transformers and GI Joe movies, than from the toys?

No. Popular toylines make crazy money. The reason Cars is getting a sequel and not The Incredibles is because Cars sold a crapload of toy cars. TF has been doing that since the 80s, and GIJoe is older than Mego.

Quote- Did the Harry Potter movies make more revenue than the actual books?

No.

Quote- Did the James Bond movies make more revenue than the novels (both Fleming and subsequent authors)?

Yes.

Quote- How much revenue does Star Wars merchandising (toys, etc ...) make, compared to the actual films?

That question is the gateway to Nyarlothotepian madness.

Quote from: TristramEvans;727060Yes, but in this case Marvel means Disney and DC means Time Warner. The people making the comics arent seeing any of that money.

I don't know about DC, but Marvel changed their business model to "Entertainment" and they got a lot of their movie deals in place before being purchased by Disney.  So at least in the case of Marvel, their division gets the revenue.  It's just that publishing comics is now a small percentage of the gross income.

QuoteAnd they better not make it an action RPG for God's sake. What I mean by that isn't so much Skyrim, but more like Diablo. That totally hamstrings the things that make D&D great. It should be party based, and not feel like you have to mash buttons as fast as you can to get anywhere.

Perhaps, though Action RPGs are the rage.  Personally, with the success of games like Left 4 Dead, Borderlands, and other small group games, the perfect game would probably be a group of 4 players + Optional DM who can create quick dungeons and spawn content.  I could see that working regardless of it being a Diablo or Borderlands clone.

Perhaps I should rephrase: the editors, writers, artists, and inkers of the comics are not seeing any of that money.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;727019And they better not make it an action RPG for God's sake.  What I mean by that isn't so much Skyrim, but more like Diablo.  That totally hamstrings the things that make D&D great.  It should be party based, and not feel like you have to mash buttons as fast as you can to get anywhere.

There's a lot of scope in the license for a good game in the S(trategy)RPG genre (ie, games like Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force), and as always it's a shame that never happened with 4e. But what Wizards really need to do is phone Obsidian, offer them as much time and money as they need, and let them come up with something. They're pretty much the best developers around for RPG-esque computer games these days.

I do like a good Diablolike, or Dark Souls, but really the licence doesn't lend itself to single-character games.

This is also a thing that looks like it might be neat.

Quote from: Ladybird;727091There's a lot of scope in the license for a good game in the S(trategy)RPG genre (ie, games like Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force), and as always it's a shame that never happened with 4e. But what Wizards really need to do is phone Obsidian, offer them as much time and money as they need, and let them come up with something. They're pretty much the best developers around for RPG-esque computer games these days.

I do like a good Diablolike, or Dark Souls, but really the licence doesn't lend itself to single-character games.

This is also a thing that looks like it might be neat.

I think there's absolutely room for multiple types of games, but they better have one that is multicharacter and turn based, to really capture that D&D feel.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;727096I think there's absolutely room for multiple types of games, but they better have one that is multicharacter and turn based, to really capture that D&D feel.

I'm pretty sure my post said the same thing, in fact namedropping a lot of multi-character, turn-based strategy games... there's also been a bit of a rennaisance of party-based first-person dungeon crawlers going on, but they're mostly being done by small teams and publishers who wouldn't be able to afford the D&D license.

But yeah. Obsidian. They're the people that should really be offered the license.